Sermon Tone Analysis

Luke 1:26-38.

I talked about Sunday how unknown Nazareth was.

Not mentioned in the OT.

Mary was a virgin this is mentioned 2 times in verse 27.

She was not married but betrothed.. Meaning legally pledged to be married.

v28 is powerful.

Its a proclamation about grace and favor.

The angel say’s greetings O favored one, the Lord is with you.

You look at in the greek, it could say you have been favored with grace.

Now she was troubled with this saying..

She had fear.

Because of what she saw.

But the angel said to her do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

This kind of favor is found in Genesis 6:8

Proverbs 12:2 “2 A good man obtains favor from the Lord, but a man of evil devices he condemns.”

And the angel procedes to tell her the best news for all who God will ever save.

And Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

And look at the characteristics of him.

He will be great.

IN such a way that God only is.

Psalm 86:10 “10 For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God.”

Psalm 145:3 “3 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.”

called the Son of the Most High.

This is a term only associated with the one true God.

It says the Lord God will give to him the throne of his Father David.

This was prophesied in Isa 9:6 “6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

But to understand this even more we need to go all the way back to 2 Samuel chapter 7:1-17 and see many of the same things the angel was telling to Mary.

In this text in verse 9 it talks about this great name.

In verse 13 his throne, and in verse 14 the sonship and verse 16 the eternal kingdom.

Another thing we see is that the Son’s reign will last forever.

Micah 4:7 “7 and the lame I will make the remnant, and those who were cast off, a strong nation; and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion from this time forth and forevermore.”

Finally we see that the kingdom will never end.

Dan 7:14 “14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”

Psalm 145:13 “13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations.

The Lord is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works.”

Heb 7:24 “24 but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever.”

I like what I saw in my study, One man said, “The great redemptive offices in Israel, the Messiah and Son of God, will in Mary’s womb converge in the incarnation of Jesus, who will finally and fully complete the redemption of Israel.

That would have been a tough statement I am sure of Mary to swallow, so she asks a question within reason?

How will this be, since I am a virgin.

Mary knew that in order to have a child you would have to have sexual intercourse.

But the angel says this is not the case.

It says The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

I have read this text many times but I haven’t given much thought to the word overshadow here, but what I found was quite incredible.

Listen to this..Critically important in understanding the glorious eschatological pronouncement of v. 35 is the word “overshadow” (Gk.

episkiazein), which recalls the divine cloud that overshadowed the tabernacle in Exod 40:35 (LXX).

When all work on the tabernacle had been completed (Exod 40:33), God overshadowed (episkiazein) it and infused it with his presence and glory.

In the tabernacle, God chose to materialize and localize himself within a particular time and space.

Luke uses this otherwise inconsequential word, which occurs in only three other places in the OT, to describe the divine overshadowing of Mary (v.

35).

The divine cloud that established his presence in a place now does so in a person.

The divine overshadowing of the earthly tabernacle was a foreshadowing of the living tabernacle, the incarnation.

John’s inimitable declaration that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14) repeats this motif, for the Greek word behind “dwelt,” skēnoun—“to pitch a tent”—recalls the tabernacle.

Episkiazein reappears at the transfiguration (9:34–36) when the divine cloud overshadows them—Jesus and Peter, James, and John—signifying divine empowerment of the apostles for mission, an event recalled in 2 Pet 1:16–18.

The divine cloud that guided the Israelites in the wilderness and infused the tabernacle at Sinai completes the drama of salvation by infusing Mary’s womb with Jesus, the Son of God, and through Jesus, the apostolic community of faith.

Isn’t that amazing.

And the Angel did not stop there he continued to tell about the birth that was going to happen with Elizabeth in her old age that she would have a son when she was barren.

God is doing two miracles.

One through the forerunner, and another through the virgin birth.

Verse 37 is just a reality of these two events.

For nothing will be impossible for God.

I love the way our study is ending with tonight in verse 38 the best response a human could make when God says something.. Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; Let it be to me according to your word.

Her response is perhaps the best definition of faith in the Bible—the desire for God’s word to become reality in our lives.

The infancy narratives, as we have seen, are securely stitched with cross references and allusions to Israel’s story, especially as embodied by Abraham and Sarah.

There is no cross reference to the OT in v. 38, however.

No one in Israel ever responded to God as does Mary.

Mary demands no outside proofs or signs that the impossible shall be made possible.

She receives God’s word in abandonment and trust.

The troubling word of v. 29 has become the sustaining word, the sole sufficiency of her life.

For the first time in the divine-human encounter, God has found a worthy partner.

“There never was a time when Israel encountered its God as Mary encountered Jesus, when it was willing to trust Him and therefore to dedicate itself wholeheartedly and unreservedly to Him.”91 Years later, in deep distress on the Mount of Olives, Jesus will pray in words closely reminiscent of Mary’s, “Not my will, but yours be done” (22:42).